Wednesday, 12 May 2004

Biometric ID cards

I'm leaving tonight for Boston (on jetBlue Airways, ironically, but I've said all along that, despite my discovery that they turned over their entire reservation archives to a military contractor, they aren't any worse than other airlines -- that sort of thing is, unfortunately, common) for tomorrow's seminar at Harvard on travel, identification, and human rights. I hope to see some of you there.

In the meantime, here are a couple of enlightening articles on the background to current biometric ID card proposals:

Case study of ICAO's consideration of iris scanning as the biometric identifier for passports and travel documents
(Inc Magazine, May 2004; for the latest discussion of this issue by ICAO, see item 3.5 of the report on last week's meeting of ICAO's Technical Advisory Group on Machine Readable Travel Documents)

"Congress shall make no law ... abridging ... the right of the people peaceably to assemble." (U.S. Constitution)

"Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state. Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country." (Universal Declaration of Human Rights)

"Liberty of movement is an indispensable condition for the free development of a person." (United Nations Human Rights Committee)